The Evil Zionists strike again - this time at Chess

[Gamblor]

Anyone who doubted the Arabs are only interested in the great Pan-Arabian continent can read this. I don't know why any of you still listen to some of the guys on this forum.

Main point:
The Israeli team was willing to visit, despite safety hazards, as a sign that sport and goodwill was beyond politics. But the Arab world dashes any hopes of peace and understanding, once again.

Israeli Chess Officials Demand Contest Be Moved From Libya

The Associated Press

Israeli chess officials demanded Thursday that this summer's world chess championships be moved, after host Libya said it would bar Israeli players.

Libya's announcement ended expectations that the chess tournament could help improve relations between the longtime Mideast enemies.

"We did not and will not invite the Zionist enemy to this championship," Mohammed Gadhafi, son of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi, told a news conference Wednesday.

In response, the Israeli Chess Association demanded that the World Chess Federation, known as FIDE, move the championship from Libya, said spokesman Yerach Tal.

"We demand that it be held in a country that will accept every nation without discrimination," Tal said. "After he [Gadhafi] used those terms, calling us the Zionist enemy, it is another game entirely."

Tal noted that in Europe, Israel is ranked second in chess after Russia.

Mohammed Gadhafi, who also heads the Libyan Olympic Committee, wrote in a letter to FIDE last week that Libya "will pleasantly provide entry visas to all the qualified participants of this great championship."

Both Israel and FIDE took this to mean that Israeli players were also welcome, prompting FIDE to declare that the championship would be held entirely in Libya, and not split- with some games in nearby Malta - as originally planned.

The World Chess Championships are to be held in Tripoli from June 18 to July 13. Libya is putting up $1.5 million in prize money for the event.

On Wednesday, Mohammed Gadhafi said Libya was prepared to risk losing the championships to keep the Israelis out.

A FIDE official in Athens, Greece, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he did not know about Libya's change of mind. FIDE officials were not immediately available for comment Thursday.

Libya has been one of Israel's harshest critics in the Arab world, hosting military bases for radical Palestinian groups. In the mid-1990s, Libya expelled thousands of Palestinians in protest after Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat entered peace talks with Israel.

But in recent years, the Libyan leader toned down his anti-Israel rhetoric as part of a larger effort to rehabilitate his international image.

[ACPlayer]

They should move the Chess tournament and ban Libya from attending.

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Anyone who doubted the Arabs are only interested in the great Pan-Arabian continent can read this. I don't know why any of you still listen to some of the guys on this forum

[/ QUOTE ]
BTW, I have not noticed anybody on this forum as being particularly pro-Arab. Unless of course this is your weak minded thinking that equates criticism of the Israeli state with support for the Arab states and/or their tactics. If so, you really should consider some therapy.

[ACPlayer]

They should move the Chess tournament and ban Libya from attending.

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone who doubted the Arabs are only interested in the great Pan-Arabian continent can read this. I don't know why any of you still listen to some of the guys on this forum

[/ QUOTE ]
BTW, I have not noticed anybody on this forum as being particularly pro-Arab. Unless of course this is your weak minded thinking that equates criticism of the Israeli state with support for the Arab states and/or their tactics. If so, you really should consider some therapy.

[Gamblor]

BTW, I have not noticed anybody on this forum as being particularly pro-Arab. Unless of course this is your weak minded thinking that equates criticism of the Israeli state with support for the Arab states and/or their tactics. If so, you really should consider some therapy.

I have never accused anyone of donning a keffiya.

But before one criticizes the Israeli state, one must understand the opponents with which it must conduct business. Ideally, we all sit down at the table and work out our differences. History continuously shows that turning the other cheek does not work with these regimes, who need a scapegoat like Israel to

a) blind world opinion to the real atrocities conducted every day in these nations

b) blind their own citizens to the realities of why life is as bad it is in Arab nations.

[mosta]

[ QUOTE ]

Tal noted that in Europe, Israel is ranked second in chess after Russia.

[/ QUOTE ]

And are there any on the "Israeli" team that didn't speak Russian as a first language?

Actually I thought this was post was going to be list of Jewish world champions. I tried to make that list with a friend at work (Russian Jew) a few years ago, and I wanted to double check our answers. I've been away from chess so long now the names have faded...Bronstein, was he one of the ones that took it from Botvinnik then gave it back. He was Jewish at least. (I could google it, but don't feel like bothering.) Tal I know did exactly that and was also Jewish. Hm. I thought we had a list, but Smyslov, Spassky, Petrosian...not Jewish I'm pretty sure. You could count Fischer, but then again... . I guess most interesting would be a list of world champion caliber players suppressed and persecuted by the Soviets--Korchnoi (remember the charming letter he received from Beckett, Camus, Duchamp (himself a master level player and author of perhaps the most esoteric chess book ever written), and Arrabal, "avec vous en coeur"), Gulko (who I'm guessing is probably on this Israeli team), ... . There was a story in Chess Life a few years back of another eastern grandmaster turning up in a tournament in Germany and the better players saying Who the hell is this guy! and where has he been? Another suppressed Soviet Jew. I wonder if the Tal quoted above is Tal's son, who another friend of mine (also Russian Jew) went to high school with in Latvia.

[andyfox]

Israel has rarely turned the other cheek. It has conducted itself as a militarized garrison state from its inception. The Zionists, rightly or wrongly, concluded in the 1930s that force was the only answer to reach their goals.

The main roadblock to reaching any kind of solution is the thinking that you correctly point out that uses Israel as a scapegoat and insistence by those like you that Israel is blameless in the tragedy, an innocent victim of complete irrationality on the other side.

[Gamblor]

d are there any on the "Israeli" team that didn't speak Russian as a first language?

That's besides the point [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

There's big trouble between the Moroccan Israelis and the Russian Israelis - At a Rage Against the Machine Concert in Tel Aviv, the biggest fight I ever saw broke out between some Moroccans and some Russians.

Wild.

[Gamblor]

It has conducted itself as a militarized garrison state from its inception. The Zionists, rightly or wrongly, concluded in the 1930s that force was the only answer to reach their goals.

Close. The Zionists realized (rightly or wrongly) that strength was the only answer to their goals. DEFENCE. Not offence. It was not until after 1973's Yom Kippur War that Deterrence was decided upon as the military strategy of choice.

(To those of you that would bring up the 1967 pre-emptive strike, it should be noted that that strike was not a means of deterrence, but that Egypt had already declared a de facto war on Israel by closing up the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, thus all but destroying any Israeli economy. Nevermind the thousands of tanks massed in the Sinai desert). But not until the early tragedies of the Yom Kippur War (wow do those Arab states fight fair or what? [1]) did Israelis realize that there would be no honour in this war, and that deterrence was the only effective means of defence.

So, while Israel is opening up Research Centres for students with anyone who will semi-peacefully deal with her (i.e. Jordan), once again, an Arab state irrationally excludes Israel from an otherwise peaceful sporting competition. Those are the facts.

[1] In October 1973, with most Jews Fasting and unable to eat or drink, even Water, and most in synagogues praying all day, the Arab states of Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel - after severe early casualties, the IDF regrouped and pushed back the Syrians, recapturing the Golan Heights, Israel's main water source.

[andyfox]

Well, strength and force.

BTW, if you really want to know a ribd anti-semite from the world of chess, they don't come any uglier or stranger than the legendary Bobby Fischer:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/12/chun.htm

[andyfox]

"a ribd anti-semite"

Sorry, I typed rabid too rapidly. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]